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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22393870">What if the love you deserve is love you never find?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaaterinapetrova/pseuds/kaaterinapetrova'>kaaterinapetrova</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Child Abuse, Gen, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Precious Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, and also maria stark is an asshole in this, bc THATS CANON, bc fuck howard, but that's a given, pepper is an asshole too, rhodey is the best as ever</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 08:46:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,913</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22393870</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaaterinapetrova/pseuds/kaaterinapetrova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is not sure what state of existence he lives in after Thanos comes and goes. It's slow and quiet where he goes and the world is a muted hum he can’t seem to see. Then one day, a kid in red pyjamas saves him from traffic and life starts to work again. </p><p>Or how Tony Stark's heart breaks and puts itself back together again, with the help of a little spiderling.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Peter Parker &amp; Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>164</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>omg it's me, your regular disaster. okay, so life has really been absolutely nuts for me lately and i haven't been able to write as much as i wanted to (the two unfinished ao3 fics are haunting me, i swear-) but i wanted to post this because idk i miss peter and tony. i still haven't watched the latest one and i've gone completely off marvel rn, but ya girl has a soft spot *finger guns*</p><p>i'm gonna come back to this in the morning and fix it when i'm not so dead and maybe have a proper plan or something idk. life's been real nuts for me, like work is just bleurgh and i am fixing my wardrobe bc i'm now bob the builder, and also baking cakes like mary berry except not mary berry bc she's actually good at that sort of thing while i just flail and pray it doesn't explode in the oven again, and my laptop just died on me like how rude, because i went abroad and i really miss it now and i couldnt write at all, and then the minute i boot up my laptop, it just decides to stop completely so there's that, why did i just throw up this whole paragraph - will be probs deleting in the morning when i am not so groggy and dead and i still have paint on my fingers gdi</p><p>me @ me constantly: write loser<br/>also me making fun of shitgame till the day i die: no, i don't think i will</p><p>all together now, you guys, SHITGAME DESERVES NO RIGHTS</p><p>also i really hope that you like this :)</p><p>will i ever write a fic without needlessly bashing pepper? she's a toxic manipulative asshole SO NOT TODAY</p><p>tony: is sad<br/>peter: THAT'S ILLEGAL</p><p>god, maria stark is so different in this fic lol. i wanted to try to write her in the position of someone who isn't at all motherly and i wanted to write tony's parents a little differently. ofc howard's still a dick bc that's like the golden rule in all my fics (that and pepper needs to die a horrific death, preferably off an active volcano, i'm not picky tbh) but i wanted to write how child neglect is still abuse and leaves its scars, i guess</p><p>idk what i'm saying oh god the difference between this note and my first note ever in that shitty fic lol </p><p>i really hope that you enjoyed this - i will be continuing it, i hope, *cries for other fics* and as always fuck pepper</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tony has walked around with a broken heart for his whole life.</p>
<p>He knows every crack, every break, and every tremor like the back of his hand. Most of them, he has made himself, but the deepest lies with the ones he let in so intensely he had no way to let them back out again.</p>
<p>This is why the first crack in Tony’s heart is his mother’s work, not Howard’s.</p>
<p>When he’s young, Tony looks at Maria Carbonell-Stark like she is the reason for everything, which she is. And maybe that’s why she stayed a little longer. Maybe she saw the wide-eyed, unconditional adoration and felt herself weaken just a little. A little, but enough.</p>
<p>Whatever the reason, his mother <em>tries</em>.</p>
<p>That’s what really hurts. Because Howard never did and it’s always easier to think of his father as some cruel, distant figure who flits in and out of Tony’s childhood. Some cold and calculating stranger, with a habitual gruff admonishment and a hard look that stays buried in the back of his mind and comes out in his darkest moments.</p>
<p>But Maria Carbonell-Stark stays and tries really, <em>really</em> hard.</p>
<p>She ruins his breakfast in the mornings and Tony swallows down blackened bacon, runny eggs, and burned toast with difficulty. When his mother is not looking, he washes it all down with untouched orange juice that Ana passes him quickly. Mama sends him to school with creased shirts and raw lunches that Jarvis finds and quickly fixes in the car ride over. He listens intently whenever his mother is getting ready for an event, learning everything she teaches him, and tries his best not to feel like a doll when she parades him around to everyone they meet, with a soft, proud smile.</p>
<p>For a while, it works and Tony can forget that his father doesn’t care to see him even when he does make it home.</p>
<p>He happily talks his mother’s ear off about his classes and the time his teacher got mad at him for getting so easily distracted and he had to sit on the bench for the rest of the lunch hour. Mama hums through the story, fixing up her make up for some event and spritzing perfume on her wrists, but when he goes back to school, Mrs Hill is gone.</p>
<p>Tony feels his stomach flip uneasily and the other teachers give him a wide berth after that, but Mama’s smile is brighter than his discomfort so he puts it away in the back of his mind. Instead, he concentrates on how much he loves putting things apart and fixing them back together again. Mama comes to his rooms to find Tony sleeping on the floor, amidst scattered household objects, but she never gets mad at him for it and Tony loves her even more.</p>
<p>“This is the way I do your father’s tie,” Mama tells him proudly one night, wrapping the tie around his throat.</p>
<p>He’s standing on the bed, watching his mother earnestly as she teaches him. Her lips are painted dark red and her curls shake against her shoulders when she shifts the tie. But Tony gets distracted too easily and his mind runs at a thousand miles a minute always inventing. Always showing off just like his father on TV. Always being the centre of attention. Even when he dreams, he dreams of being someone important. Someone who doesn’t just leave a mark, but an entire crater on this world.</p>
<p>“Can you show it again?” Tony asks when his mother swiftly pats his shoulders and he realises he’s been too busy daydreaming about a robot for his science fair.</p>
<p>Mama’s smile tenses. Just a little. But enough.</p>
<p>“We’re going to be late, Tony.”</p>
<p>“Please?”</p>
<p>“How can you figure out how to completely dissemble my mother’s favourite typewriter and leave it in pieces all over the living room floor, but you don’t know how to tie up a simple knot?” his mother teases, but there’s something in the way she speaks that makes the unease rise back up. When she sees him duck his head, she chucks his chin and gives her usual relaxed smile. “Alright. Once more, Tony.”</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Everything is perfect until Tony breaks the circuit board.</p>
<p>He’s not supposed to be in his father’s workshop, but the lights and the noises had sparked his curiosity like nothing before. Tony used to peek in when Howard was working, only to be picked up and taken away by his sighing mother when his father shouted for peace. So, he kept away until Howard’s visits were farther and farther apart and the distance to the door to the workshop became shorter.</p>
<p>It’s not the magical wonderland he’d expected when he first walks in.</p>
<p>But it’s fascinating, still.</p>
<p>Tony stares around himself with intense curiosity. Howard’s workshop is an array of sleek, black surfaces and dark lights spotted over various ensembles. There’s the familiar sound of cogs and machinery, the smell of engine oil seeping through the air, as he walks through the place.</p>
<p>The circuit board in question is small, so Tony had thought nothing of picking it up.</p>
<p>He’d picked it up just to have a look, he insisted to Jarvis later. He didn’t mean to break it—but <em>snap</em>, Howard’s very important piece to some puzzle he was figuring out had cracked apart in his fingers and Tony had frozen in fear.</p>
<p>When Mama sees it, she lets out a hoarse cry. His fingers shake and his eyes brim over in a way they never have before. Tony has never heard his mother make such a sound.</p>
<p>“It’s too hard,” she exclaims to the ceiling, before looking at Jarvis. “I can’t do it.”</p>
<p>“I’ll fix it, Mama,” Tony promises feverishly. He’s figured out how to reassemble the radio sets and Jarvis’ best wristwatch; he can certainly fix this. Especially if it makes his mother so sad. “I swear—,”</p>
<p>“Master Tony,” Jarvis says gently, but the words fall like a knife. “Your mother would like to be alone right now. To your room.”</p>
<p>For the first time, Tony disobeys Jarvis and darts out of his room to listen in on his mother. She is swearing in Italian, trying to piece together the broken circuit board to no avail, her pretty mouth pulled down.</p>
<p>“I can’t do it,” Mama repeats angrily, lifting her head in a jerking motion that shifts her dark curls. “It’s too much on me.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t quite understand what she means, first. Jarvis has always told him to pick himself up whenever he fails at something and try and try again until he succeeds. Tony thinks maybe that’s just what Mama needs.</p>
<p>But Jarvis simply stands silently beside Mama and doesn’t say a thing to her. His face is wan and Tony feels the familiar unease pool in the deep of his stomach again.</p>
<p>“He’s breaking everything in the house, Jarvis,” Mama is saying feverishly. “Are children supposed to be this messy? He’s already ruined half of my favourite perfumes with his little experiments or whatever they are. I can barely keep up anymore. My mother’s typewriter was one thing, but Howard’s work now, too? Howard’s going to do my head in if he sees this.”</p>
<p>“Young Master Tony is a very intelligent child,” Jarvis tells his mother reassuringly. “I am sure that he will be able to fix—,”</p>
<p>“I just don’t understand it at all,” his mother interrupts. “How can he get such great results at school and yet I had to spend an hour teaching him how to do his tie up last week? By the end of it, I was ready to actually throw myself out of the first floor. He still doesn’t know how, Jarvis!”</p>
<p>The crack doesn’t happen, yet. But Tony feels a strange hollowness carve out in the middle of his chest, leaving his throat thick and strangled. Like his mother’s pretty, manicured fingers have wrapped around his heart and taken it out.</p>
<p>He finds he is holding his breath.</p>
<p>“He is still only seven. Perhaps,” Jarvis begins tentatively, “Ana and I might be able to help ease—,”</p>
<p>“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Mama’s mouth turns down into an ugly snarl, her eyes sharp and narrowed. “You think I don’t see how you and Ana look at me? I’m not a perfect mother, I know, but I’m fucking <em>trying</em>.”</p>
<p>Tony flinches at the curse word, but his eyes fix on Jarvis. The butler looks utterly mortified, bending his head in respect when he speaks.</p>
<p>“Ana and I have never—,”</p>
<p>“Stop grovelling, Jarvis,” Mama snaps. “Save that bullshit for my husband. He’s the one who laps that up.” She gives a heavy sigh and in that moment, all the fight seems to seep out of her. “It’s me, isn’t it? You’d think I would get better at all this shit. But I still can’t even make a decent boiled egg for him.”</p>
<p>Tony doesn’t listen to anything else because after that, the rest of the world becomes a blur.</p>
<p>In the evening, his mother comes to his room, her lips lifted into the widest curve Tony has ever seen. Her smile is brighter than the light that shines on his schoolbooks and it begins to ease the ache in his chest a little, before he realises what it means. Mama is happy, and Tony’s heart sinks like a stone in his chest when he realises that he’s never brought that smile to her face. Not even when he showed her the little robot dog he’d made for his science class.</p>
<p>Mama tells him that she’s going on a small trip.</p>
<p>“Just a little something to put my head back together,” she tells him with careless ease and dreamy eyes. She’s almost humming as she puts away his books and tucks him into bed, drawing the sheets over him.</p>
<p>A million questions flit through his mind.</p>
<p>
  <em>Is it my fault?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Where are you going?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Can I go with you?</em>
</p>
<p>Instead, he settles for, “Will you be gone very long?”</p>
<p>But Mama doesn’t seem to hear him and the rest of the week passes too quickly.</p>
<p>Tony steps into his mother’s room only to find most of it packed away in boxes. All of her expensive, perfumed dresses are gone, leaving the closets completely bare, and even her dressing table where he had executed several successful and non-successful experiments with her make up is cleared away. When he gives her the fixed circuit board with small, shaking fingers, Mama only offers him a brief kiss on the cheek in thanks before waving him away to continue a conversation with her friends on the phone.</p>
<p>He puts a hand to his cheek and steps out of his mother’s room to never enter it again.</p>
<p>When the time comes for her to leave, something in him knows that she’s not going to be coming back for some time. Tony hates that she’s so happy about it.</p>
<p>“I do love you,” Maria Stark says, “but I don’t think I was meant to be a mother.”</p>
<p>That’s the first time Tony’s heart breaks.</p>
<p>His mother drops a kiss on his head and takes the jet to Bali for a sun-soaked vacation with fancy parties and glittering jewels and mystery men. Tony stays on the driveway, staring after her, long after she’s left.</p>
<p>The first crack in Tony’s heart is a silver line Maria Stark makes and it runs deep.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>First, Tony excitedly tells his mother everything that’s happening in his life.</p>
<p>Jarvis packs his lunches and takes him to school now, but Tony convinces himself that it won’t be long now until his mother comes back. He wakes every morning to count down the days and ticks them away eagerly, not noticing the worried looks Ana and Jarvis share at the kitchen table. When he goes to school, he enthusiastically takes part in every lesson just so his teachers can tell his mother how good he’s been when she comes back.</p>
<p>Then Mama tells him that she can’t make it back home, just yet.</p>
<p>“I have an invitation to England, Tony! You can make it a little longer without me, can’t you?” she tells him, but she doesn’t wait for an answer.</p>
<p>After his mother leaves, Tony doesn’t speak for the longest time.</p>
<p>Ana lets him sit in the kitchen with her now to eat his dinner, because now there’s no Mama to tell him to sit up straight and know their places. He doesn’t talk and he doesn’t eat, even though Ana tries to cajole him. Jarvis even offers him ice cream, even though he’s not allowed because it will make his stomach hurt, but he doesn’t want it.</p>
<p>Instead, Tony pretends to go to bed and stays up the whole night feverishly pulling apart the circuit board and fixing it back together again. Every time he pieces it back together, he adds something new to it, like a new sprig or a coil or a cog that will make it stronger and better. Every time he shatters it apart, he thinks he will never pick it up again.</p>
<p>Tony gets used to the emptiness of the house too quickly.</p>
<p>As the years pass, his mother’s calls grow more and more distant and Tony eventually stops asking Jarvis if she’s called whenever he comes back from school. He pretends it doesn’t matter at all and laughs loudest and happiest in school. Spends most of his time parading himself around as a popular king who engineers in his spare time and the media eats it up hungrily.</p>
<p>Tony laughs and draws the attention of the room with his sharp wit and barbed charisma constantly. He has every eye on him so he learns to enjoy it and roll with the questions thrown at him by every hungry vulture he sees. He does it all so loudly that he hopes it covers up whatever had made his parents leave him.</p>
<p>Ana and Jarvis do their best to keep the house warm and cheerful, but Tony hates the look of it even so.</p>
<p>He stays out later and later because he has no mother and father to pull him in. He goes to parties and drinks so much he throws up. He takes pills and snorts everything he’s given and when he stumbles into the house in the early hours of the morning to see Ana sitting at the table with worried, tearful eyes and Jarvis pacing the hallway frantically, Tony begins to reign it in a little.</p>
<p>“We are not yours,” Ana tells him once she’s finished helping him purge and tucked him away in bed like he’s a child again. Her eyes are soft and gentle and loving when she touches his cheek. “But we see you as ours even so.”</p>
<p>Her words stay with him and Tony stops coming back so late. He still goes to parties and drinks like there’s no tomorrow, because they’re not his parents. But he also helps Ana make latkes and pretends Jarvis’ Tortoise of Fury is the reason he and Tiberius Stone calls a truce on their competing feud. It’s not, because Tony and Tiberius fight like cats and dogs and won’t ever stop, but Jarvis doesn’t have to know that.</p>
<p>And one night, Tony finally changes his bedroom into a makeshift workshop. Just like his father’s.</p>
<p>He stays buried deep in engineering marvels and emerges with bloodshot eyes and tired but triumphant grins with various trinkets and things he makes. Tony learns how to use hammers and actually fix things back together once he pulls them apart. He watches frayed sparks clatter and clash, their light reflecting back in the blue of his eyes, completely enamoured and wants nothing more than to replicate it.</p>
<p>No. Not replicate or copy.</p>
<p>Make it <em>better</em>.</p>
<p>Ana gets bowls that can mix themselves and Jarvis’ wristwatch is properly fixed. Tony brings his machines into school and laughs when Tiberius writhes with jealousy. Though the crack in his heart does not heal, Tony begins to forget it exists.</p>
<p>Then, Howard comes back.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Howard comes by one day and picks up the worn, modified circuit board.</p>
<p>Tony bites his tongue and swallows tight when his father eyes the mechanical trinkets and things laid scattered over the house. Ana tucks herself away in the kitchen, hiding her bowl behind her back, and Jarvis stays beside Tony’s side. Two pillars of strength Tony loves with all of his broken heart.</p>
<p>But there is a light of interest in his father’s eye and it brightens when he sees Tony’s workshop.</p>
<p>“You built this all yourself?” Dad says to him, looking awed. Tony nods, his heart wide and gaping. “That’s amazing. I can’t believe I made something like—who would have thought you’d get my brains <em>and</em> good looks, too?”</p>
<p>“You like it?” Tony asks, swallowing tight.</p>
<p>“Like it?” his father echoes. “This is brilliant! Where’s Obie, Jarvis? He has to see all this.”</p>
<p>“Mr Stane is at the door—,”</p>
<p>“Obie! My boy’s a prodigy! Just like his old man!”</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Things are good for a while.</p>
<p>Howard stays and Tony starts to feel like the cracks his mother made when he was seven are beginning to finally heal. Obadiah stays, too, and calls him words like <em>boy-wonder</em> and <em>genius</em> and <em>prodigy</em>. Tony knows that’s what he is, because of the media and school, but he likes it better when it comes from Obie.  </p>
<p>But when Obie claps him on the shoulder and laughs whenever he manages to fix something that his father’s been struggling with for a while, Howard doesn’t seem to like it very much. Tony has to pretend that he’s not that good, though not everyone is convinced. Least of all, his father.</p>
<p>It’s a struggle, balancing the line between making his father proud and making him jealous.</p>
<p>But if Dad stays, then it’s worth it.</p>
<p>When Howard introduces him at his first press conferences, the cameras flash in his face and Tony swears he almost goes completely blind. When he tells his dad, Dad only laughs at him and tells him to get used to it.</p>
<p>
  <em>You’ll be dealing with these vultures long after you’re dead, Tony. They’ll peck at your corpse even when it’s in the ground.</em>
</p>
<p>Howard seems to find that funny, but Tony hates the whole media circus and doesn’t feel very reassured at all. When Jarvis offers him sunglasses as a quiet joke to stop him going blind, it’s then he realises that maybe his dad only stayed because his son can build miracles and that’s the Stark legacy. Maybe Howard is only here because he can use Tony.</p>
<p>That’s worse, Tony decides, than ignoring him for fourteen years.</p>
<p>His father picks up the circuit board again from where it’s been sitting on his gleaming mahogany desk. Tony has never liked his father’s office. The chairs are stiff leather and uncomfortable, the fireplace is always roaring hot, and there’s a strong smell of cigar smoke that seeps thickly in the air and makes him choke.</p>
<p>Tony shifts in the chair opposite the desk uncomfortably, trying to sit properly. For once, Dad doesn’t tell him to sit up straight. Instead, there’s a mix of awe and jealousy swirling in his features that stays. Gleams in his eyes from the light of the fireplace, lingering long after the press conference.</p>
<p>“So,” Howard finally says, looking up at him. He puts down the circuit board and goes to the drinks cabinet that Tony picked the lock to years ago. His father gets a new glass and pours a few fingers of bourbon. “Made your own circuit board. Got through your first press conference. You’re a man now, Tony.”</p>
<p>“Thanks, Dad,” Tony says, but there’s an underlying current of discomfort in the air. It’s like when he was picking up the circuit board for the first time and the moment before it snapped in his fingers was fraying with electricity.</p>
<p>“How long have you got left in school?” Howard asks. “When’s that MIT internship thing?”</p>
<p>“After the summer,” Tony tells his father.</p>
<p>He doesn’t bother to correct his dad: it’s not an internship. It’s an actual position. He’ll be an undergraduate and he can’t wait.</p>
<p>“That’s good,” Dad says. “Just like me, then, eh?”</p>
<p>“Just like you, Dad.”</p>
<p>Howard offers him the glass and Tony’s mouth goes dry.</p>
<p>“Then drink like me.”</p>
<p>Tony stares at the glass. He wonders if this is a test.</p>
<p>“I don’t—,” he begins awkwardly.</p>
<p>“Go on, Tony,” Dad says. “Drink.”</p>
<p>“Dad—,”</p>
<p>Howard impatiently shoves the glass into his fingers and grasps his palm so tight that Tony hears rather than feels the glass break. It’s his mother leaving in a cloud of dust on the driveway all over again. Red stems against his hand, the alcohol stinging, but the pain of it is nothing compared to the hard look Howard gives him.</p>
<p>“I said, <em>drink</em>.”</p>
<p>His father is an ugly drunk.</p>
<p>The crack in Tony’s heart is the exact same shape of the crack on the first glass of bourbon he ever has.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>The years pass mutely, like he’s got his head underwater.</p>
<p>Tony invents and builds things and takes up the whole room wherever he goes. His father tells him to get used to it, but Tony decides to <em>use it. </em>When the vultures come for him, he lays his throat bare and feeds them whatever he likes. They lap it up and the new power makes him giddy as Tony grows to love the attention and the world. He loves being the centre of the room wherever he is and holds the power over them like catnip.</p>
<p>He knows they use him.</p>
<p>So he uses them, too.</p>
<p>Then, his parents die horrifically in a car crash.</p>
<p>Tony doesn’t cry at the funeral, but he breaks down washing the dishes in the kitchen. Jarvis holds him until he stops and then for longer than that. He puts on the sunglasses Obie gives him and begins to wonder again if he is a monster.</p>
<p>When Ana dies, he cries so hard he doesn’t know if he can stop. When Jarvis dies soon after, because he and Ana were wrapped around each other’s hearts so strong they couldn’t untangle themselves away, Tony stays in his room for three days.</p>
<p>He comes out when Obie helps him to his feet and wipes the tears off his cheeks. Takes charge of Stark Industries and revolutionises the world again.</p>
<p>Tony pretends that it’s all he needs to keep going. That there’s not a gaping litany of cracks in his heart that yawns open like a boundless chasm, threatening to devour him whole in his sadness.</p>
<p>He smiles and laughs and snaps his sunglasses back on his face again.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>His life is a constant nonstop motion of things happening, one after the other, until Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Afghanistan is when everything <em>stops</em>.</p>
<p>And then it starts again slowly. Just like his heart.</p>
<p>Tony discovers that he has so much blood on his hands that he dreams he is choking on it and wakes, thinking he is drowning in red. Yinsen helps him find air to breathe and they manage to somehow make it through the days together. It is only when he gets into the suit that he feels he can breathe properly for once. It’s a freedom and a relief like nothing else when Tony becomes Iron Man.</p>
<p>He lives for the look people give him when he saves their lives instead of taking them away.</p>
<p>But not everyone agrees with it.</p>
<p>“I’ve done horrible things,” he says, his voice stilted and eyes bloodshot and cheeks gaunt, when his best friend finds him in the workshop, hammering out the dents of the suit. Tony has never felt so sick of himself. “And if it takes me my entire lifetime to make up for it, then I want to do that. I don’t want to stop trying.”</p>
<p>For a moment, Rhodey’s gaze lingers slowly over the fraying cogs and boards scattered messily on the counter before he looks to the dozens of suits kept protectively in glass. His best friend’s face is completely expressionless, scanning the workshop carefully, and Tony closes his eyes briefly. He can already hear the protests.</p>
<p>
  <em>You’re sick in the head, you’re not thinking straight. Tony, you don’t have to do this.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Tony, this is why everyone leaves.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>This is why I’m leaving, too.</em>
</p>
<p>But his best friend is his best friend for a reason.</p>
<p>“Alright,” Rhodey says, nodding. He looks determined. “How do I help, Tony?”</p>
<p>Tony almost breaks down all over again.</p>
<p>Pepper, on the other hand, has a completely different reaction.</p>
<p>Her mouth presses together into a hard line and she holds the files in her hands very tightly when she sees the suits in his workshop. Tony already knows the warning signs and he raises his hands quickly to explain before she can start to shout.</p>
<p>“I have to do this, Pepper. I have to be better,” he tells her. “I have to make up for this—,”</p>
<p>“If you have to make up for it, why do you have to do it with these suits?” Pepper protests, visibly distressed. “Why can’t you just be happy with shutting down the weapons division, even though it makes the most money and—,”</p>
<p>“Kills the most people.”</p>
<p>She gives him a hard, unamused look.</p>
<p>“You know what I’m saying, Tony,” she tells him. “Why do you have to do all of this?”</p>
<p>“Because shutting down the weapons division is too easy a solution,” Tony says. “There’s a lot more to it that I need to fix personally. I have to make sure myself that I’m not hurting people anymore—,”</p>
<p>“You don’t have to punish yourself for what Stane did. None of us had any idea—,”</p>
<p>“I’m not punishing myself,” he tells her. “I’m… I’m setting things to rights.”</p>
<p>Pepper looks frustrated. She doesn’t understand the feeling of euphoria in the suits. The relief and freedom in at least trying to do and be better. Why would she? There is nobody out there who has as much blood on their hands as Tony.</p>
<p>“And this is setting things to rights? Tony, you’re making toy tin suits!” she exclaims, and that <em>hurts</em>.</p>
<p>“They’re not toys,” Tony corrects quietly.</p>
<p>“They’re reckless and dangerous, Tony,” Pepper says angrily. “You’re endangering your life! You have people who care for you. People who would actually miss you, Tony!”</p>
<p>“Like you?”</p>
<p>“Yes, like me!” Pepper huffs at him.</p>
<p>“Then why do you stay?” Tony says, something dark and angry and bitter in his mouth. He lashes out, like he always does, his mind feeling as though it’s devouring itself in his rising distress. “If I’m such a reckless child who makes toys all the time, why are you still here?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know, the money’s quite good!”</p>
<p>He knows she doesn’t mean it. But it stings, still.</p>
<p>“This matters to me,” Tony says quietly. “Saving lives is worth more to me than the handful of people who might miss me when I’m gone.”</p>
<p>“I’ve never heard something so selfish, Tony,” Pepper tells him, disgusted.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“I know you’re not.”</p>
<p>To his relief, Pepper stays. But her frustration and resentment and disgust for the suits (for <em>him, </em>some deep and ugly part of him whispers) stay, too.</p>
<p>Life goes on.</p>
<p>The world keeps spinning.</p>
<p>And people, as they are wont to do, also come and go. Some, like Rhodey and Happy and Pepper, stay, but most of them slip away like sand between his fingers. Tony tries not to mind. Tries not to wonder what’s so wrong with him that people keep leaving all the time.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>The years pass mutely.</p>
<p>Thanos comes and goes.</p>
<p>Thanos comes and Tony decides to be the one to snap his fingers. He can tell, when everyone looks at him, they judge him for it. When the Avengers and Pepper and the rest of the world stare at him, they don’t see a hero. They see what he sees, too. A fake, a phony, in a toy tin can.</p>
<p>They think he’s trying to live out some old glory. That he is addicted to the power and playing up to the ideal of Iron Man once more like an old has-been who doesn’t know it’s past his time. Tony wonders how best to explain that he’s left that behind a long time ago.</p>
<p>But he realises there’s no point.</p>
<p>Once, Tony had loved the drama and the excitement of his life. Of making things better. But now, everything pales with every misfortune and calamity that falls on his head. It’s like the bad things won’t stop coming, one after the other, no matter what he tries to do, and Tony dreams he’s choking on the cracks in his heart.</p>
<p>Besides, he thinks to himself as he reaches for the gauntlet, he hasn’t lost anyone like they all have. So if he dies, then that’s one less problem for the world. Tony thinks maybe Rhodey would be the only one who would understand that, but he doesn’t want to put his best friend through something like that, so he keeps his mouths hut.</p>
<p>When he wakes up, after reversing time and bringing everyone back, Tony pushes down the disappointment that he survived yet again. He snaps his sunglasses on and smiles the same smile his mother gave him before leaving him.</p>
<p>“See you around,” he says to the Avengers, but he knows he won’t.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Tony is not sure what state of existence he lives in after Thanos goes.</p>
<p>It’s slow and quiet wherever he is and it’s strange for someone who once lived their life in the loud and bright spotlight. People are either thanking him or leaving him alone and Tony is not sure what he feels of it. The world is strangely quieter around him and the suit lies untouched in his workshop where he is beginning to retreat more and more with every argument he has with Pepper.</p>
<p>She doesn’t seem to understand why he’s getting so quiet and what’s more, she doesn’t like it either. There’s a lot she doesn’t seem to like, Tony thinks one day and then he immediately feels like an asshole.</p>
<p>As though he could <em>ever</em> deserve someone like her.</p>
<p>He spends his days fixing up the suit and helping out with the after-Thanos effects on the world. The Avengers do most of the hard work, but Tony stays behind the scenes and helps to fund the repair efforts and the rehabilitation facilities. When he gets into the suit, which is very rare, it’s only ever as a last resort and he gets out of it as soon as possible.</p>
<p>Why would he deserve the suit anymore?</p>
<p>Every day seems to blur into another.</p>
<p>Tony doesn’t recognise the man looking back at him in the mirror anymore.</p>
<p>Rhodey and Pepper and Happy are worried about him, he can tell. But Tony doesn’t know what to say or do to alleviate their concerns, because he doesn’t understand this himself. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.</p>
<p>Happy insists on a vacation, but Tony doesn’t know where to go. Pepper tries to make him get out of the workshop, but he feels eaten up with anxiety every time he’s away from the work. Rhodey sits beside him and helps him quietly on the suits and the work when he has the time and those are the moments his world feels the slightest bit right.</p>
<p>The fight is over.</p>
<p>The war is won.</p>
<p>Thanos is gone.</p>
<p>So, why does he still feel so empty?</p>
<p>Tony goes around with a cracked heart, unable to make sense of anything anymore. The world is hollow and empty and Tony watches it quietly pass him by. He feels as though he’s both playing a part in it and watching from the sidelines all at once.</p>
<p>Then, one day, a kid in red pyjamas saves him from traffic and life starts to work again.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>it's been a very not good day--week, month, year, whatever. but i really wanted to get this done and i don't know when the next update may come bc everything rn is up in the air lol, but it will come. </p>
<p>i really hope you like this chapter. thank you so much for reading and for taking the time to comment and leave kudos. i see them all and i really appreciate it. :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He’s been in the workshop for over two weeks when Pepper comes in.</p>
<p>She opens her mouth to say something before she just stares at him and a myriad of emotions flitter through her face, too fast for him to place. But enough for him to know what it all means.</p>
<p>He knows he’s not doing well. Tony knows what he looks like. He has a mirror.</p>
<p>Gaunt cheeks. Sunken, red eyes. Pale skin. He looks like a living ghost, but Pepper just stares at him as though she’s never seen anything like him and it makes him feel like a complete stranger. It makes him feel like he doesn’t exist.</p>
<p>His gaze turns to the files in her hands pointedly, wanting her to speak of the work she’s coming to lay on him. But Tony knows better—or rather, he thinks he knows Pepper better, at least.</p>
<p>“Tony,” she begins, an unbroken sigh in her voice, and Tony shifts, automatically defensive. There’s something about the way she speaks to him that makes all the hope in his chest wither and die. “I <em>thought</em> you were getting better.”</p>
<p>“I am,” Tony says earnestly. “I am, I swear it—look at how many suits I’ve made, Pepper. Plus, all the contracts you sent my way? All of them completed and I even managed to clear time for the Avengers Foundation so I can help with the charity—,”</p>
<p>“I don’t see you getting better, Tony,” Pepper tells him. Her voice is gentle but insistent and it grates on him. It is a truth only she can see. He yearns to make her understand. “I see a very sick person, using these toys to deflect how you’re really feeling. They’re distractions, Tony.”</p>
<p>Tony feels the usual protectiveness rise up in his chest. This is his life’s work. He spent hours and time and energy into them all and it hurts to have one of the only few people in his life he cares for just dismiss it all away as though he was a little boy playing at circuit boards again.</p>
<p>“The suits aren’t toys.”</p>
<p>“They’re not healthy,” Pepper insists. “You don’t see it, Tony, but you’re obsessed. You’re—you’re fixated on them. Look at you, Tony. Do you even see yourself?”</p>
<p>“Do you see <em>me</em>?” Tony feels the familiar anxiety rush back, brimming heavily in the pit of his stomach. “Don’t you see how this all helps me, Pepper? It’s—it’s not an obsession. I can—,” He fights to explain to her. “After—after everything, my mind—it’s just a mess. It won’t stop thinking. And I can’t see an end, but this. Every time I work on the suits, I have a purpose again. I—I have an understanding and a feeling that my life can be something more than blood and pain I’ve given to people. It’s not an obsession. It—it’s <em>salvation</em>.”</p>
<p>But Pepper just blinks at him.</p>
<p>She doesn’t get it. He wonders if she’s even trying to understand him.</p>
<p><em>Lie to me</em>, Tony suddenly thinks.</p>
<p>“I love you, Tony,” Pepper tells him and everything comes crashing down all around him, “but I can’t watch you do this to yourself. Do you know what it does to <em>me</em>, watching you fall apart like this?” She puts a hand on her heart and when she speaks again, her voice is heavy and achingly familiar. “Sometimes I think you’re killing me with everything you put me through. I don’t know if I can really take it much longer.”</p>
<p>His throat grows thick and the panic thrums in his veins. Not for the first time in his life, Tony convinces himself that he is perfectly content with being alone. The lie tastes bittersweet in his mouth and he has to focus properly to keep himself in the workshop, staring back at Pepper with something like betrayal.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Tony says, something hollow and mechanic carved out in his heart. “I’ll do better, I swear.”</p>
<p>There must be something in him that works because Pepper beams back at him, bright and cheerful and beautiful as ever. It’s a hollow feeling, because he’s telling her a lie and he knows it well. Something in his heart aches.</p>
<p>But when Pepper smiles at him like that, he pretends there’s a blanket around his rusted heart, keeping him warm anyway.</p>
<p>“You can start,” she tells him, picking up a cog and looking at it with confused distaste, “with getting rid of this stuff. Bring some light in this place, Tony.”</p>
<p>“Sure,” Tony says. He changes the subject. “What does the board want?”</p>
<p>He’s been getting a lot of complaints from the board about her work—or lack of. Pepper’s not exactly qualified to run a multinational company, but she’s got a stubborn streak a mile wide and she’s very proud of it. So, Tony keeps ignoring all the comments and waiting for her to speak about them instead. They like to pretend that Tony’s the one in the relationship with all the problems.</p>
<p>The list of things they don’t speak about piles up between them, an empty, cavernous mountain simply growing until he can barely see her.</p>
<p>“The board needs your signatures on these new contracts,” she says, pushing some of the armour aside with a rolled up magazine and looking annoyed at the dripping engine oil. Pepper smiles at him and her voice is a teasing lilt when she continues. “They asked me to get them from you, because, well, who else would be willing to put up with you?”</p>
<p>Tony is left wondering why that hurts so much.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>He’s left still thinking that over when he steps out of the tower.</p>
<p>Tony is not quite sure what he’s looking for, but the strange distress and confusion swirling through him strains in his workshop. It brims around him, contained within the confined space of his workshop and for a moment, even picking up the Iron Man arc reactor doesn’t do a single thing to sate the ache. He puts down the tools, just like Pepper asked, though it drags something horrible out of him and gets out of the tower.</p>
<p>Aimlessly walking through the streets, Tony keeps his head down. The air is cool and pleasant on his cheeks, the summer haze already settling into New York around him. He follows his feet wherever they lead him, wondering if the road will ever end, and barely pays attention to anything around him.</p>
<p>And then all is red and blue and the blare of the horns roars in his ears—</p>
<p>“Oh my God,” comes the voice.</p>
<p>Metal gleams and cracks itself into place smoothly, carving out the armour to protect its unworthy wearer. Tony is already slamming his flattened palm against the throat of the speaker, the gauntlet clawing its way around his hand protectively.</p>
<p>Or rather, where he <em>thinks</em> the throat would have been, he realises as his hand collides painfully with a nose.</p>
<p>A <em>masked</em> nose.</p>
<p>A pyjama-clad person is standing in front of him, stumbling back and cursing at the brief pain as they scrabble for their face. Bewildered, Tony finds himself being pushed back and suddenly all he can see is a red onesie and the truck as it rushes past, screaming in his ears.</p>
<p>“Person in a onesie,” Tony states blankly. He blinks. “I’m being attacked by a onesie.”</p>
<p>What has his life come to?</p>
<p>“This isn’t a onesie!” the onesie maniac splutters defensively. “And I’m not attacking you!” He puffs himself up. “I saved your life!” Tony narrows his eyes. Why does that sound like a kid? Is it Halloween or something? “Mr Stark, it <em>is </em>you! They—we saw—you—,”</p>
<p>“Why are you a onesie?” Tony says, staring. He can’t quite get over it and he pokes at the pyjamas experimentally before him, aghast and awed all at once. The figure before him is unironically dressed in what looks like a superhero suit, but a very poor one. “Are you wearing <em>goggles</em>?”</p>
<p>“Mr Stark, I actually saved your life, so—,” the onesie says, very matter-of-face, before his words register and Tony can actually see the expression on the mask change. “They’re not goggles!”</p>
<p>Recognition filters through him, faint.</p>
<p>“I know you,” Tony says in realisation. “You’re the spiderling. Spider… thing?”</p>
<p>“Spider-Man,” the onesie corrects and he actually heaves a sigh, like he’s been through this before. Tony feels his lips quirk upwards in unfamiliar amusement. “I got to go, Mr Stark, but you’re welcome!”</p>
<p>“Hey, wait—,”</p>
<p>“Bye Mr Stark!” Spider-Man calls to him. “Look both ways before crossing the road!”</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Spider-Man is a hero.</p>
<p>That’s the first thing Tony decides when he leans back from his desk in the workshop. His eyes are red and bloodshot from staying in the darkness for two days and one night, researching everything he can. Raking over every single movement Spider-Man has made, from the moment he was first captured onscreen to every minute he spends helping everyone, no matter who they are.</p>
<p>Tony watches the masked hero swoop in and help everyone, little or big. From helping people across the street to stopping bank robberies, Spider-Man doesn’t seem to discriminate at all. He’s become as much a monument to the Queens scene as Captain America is to history, Tony realises. But there’s a difference to the way Steve is treated by people and the way Spider-Man is treated.</p>
<p>Steve is reacted with reverence and awe, a legend in the history books come to life. A figure so towering he seems almost impossible to imagine as human. Tony knows that all too well. How many times had he tilted his head back to stare up at the life size picture Howard Stark had of him in his Captain America shrine-room?</p>
<p>But Spider-Man…</p>
<p>Spider-Man is one of the people completely, wholeheartedly. He’s awkward and easy when he’s bantering with the bank robbers, so much that it’s so clear to see that he, like anyone else, is just doing his very best. Even when he helps people find their way in the big city, there’s a wonderful sense of humanity about it all, as though it wouldn’t ever occur to him to even begin to refuse anyone.</p>
<p>Tony thought Captain America was the hero he wanted to become.</p>
<p>But now, looking at Spider-Man, he thinks he has a new hero.</p>
<p>The second thing Tony realises is that Spider-Man is also a <em>baby.</em></p>
<p>An actual child is in that suit, Tony realises when he sees the masked figure clamber awkwardly into a window he only just manages to pull open. His horror is palpable, especially when he cross-references the data to discover Peter Parker’s very young age. It’s frighteningly obvious when Tony moves back to comb over all the footage and scrub it clean of any suspicion, to watch the way Spider-Man interacts with people.</p>
<p>It’s not humanity he had spotted.</p>
<p>It’s the innocence of childhood.</p>
<p>Of <em>course</em> a child would want to help everyone he sees. Tony had been much the same, trying to fix every little thing for his mother just to make her smile at him. It had never worked—that’s really the difference between himself and Peter—but there is a literal <em>child</em> swinging around New York, getting hit by buildings and putting himself between danger and the people.</p>
<p>No wonder he wore a onesie.</p>
<p>Tony slaves over the new suit and as he does so, something seems to spark within him once more, propelling him forward. It’s much the same spark as when he’d first come back from Afghanistan and shut down the weapons division, he is startled to realise when he finally looks back over the red and blue suit.</p>
<p>Pride and wariness wars within him, but Tony knows what will win overall.</p>
<p>The kid is just like Steve. All honour and kindness and compassion. He doesn’t deserve the awfulness of Tony Stark marring him, but Tony doesn’t see anyone else in his corner.</p>
<p>Peter Parker doesn’t deserve Tony Stark, but he deserves someone. And until that person shows up, Tony Stark will have to do.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>“Onesie!” Tony calls out, scrambling to get to his feet.</p>
<p>He’s been on the rooftop Spider-Man is known to frequent for hours now, just waiting in the slowly dimming sunlight. A restlessness had filled him when the wait carried on, the familiar anxiety brimming in his chest and threatening to unspool itself and pour from his body like water. Millions of questions had bombarded his head and he’d resorted to muttering his grounding techniques to stop himself becoming completely overwhelmed.</p>
<p>But the kid is finally here.</p>
<p>Spider-Man swings to the rooftop. Drops down nimbly, all light reflexes and familiar ease with his abilities. Tony is glaringly reminded of the way he had stepped into the Iron Man suit for the first time and it had flung him across the wall where U had immediately sprayed him with the fire extinguisher.</p>
<p>“Mr <em>Stark?</em>” he splutters, almost crashing half-swing and Tony watches, fascinated, when the kid catches his balance just in time, making it look both awkward and smooth all at the same time. The onesie somehow looks worse since the last time Tony saw it and he winces. “What—what are you doing here?”</p>
<p>“Trying to stop you from giving me a heart attack,” Tony tells him. “Quick interview.”</p>
<p>“What? For—for the <em>Avengers</em>?” Spider-Man looks overjoyed, the childish lilt of his voice echoing around them. “Oh, man, am I going to be an—,”</p>
<p>“No, that’s not my jurisdiction,” Tony tells him quickly. He’s used to giving bad news to people, but something punches him in the gut at the way the kid’s mask falls, crestfallen. It’s because of that face that Tony finds himself trying to explain, wanting nothing more than for the kid’s face to perk up again. “Sorry, I—you got to talk to Cap, if you want to do that. There’s a …whole process and everything. Can’t just swing in and out these days. Not after… the Accords and everything.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Spider-Man says. He nods, very matter-of-fact. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, I get it—I understand, Mr Stark.”</p>
<p>“I just wanted to,” Tony begins, somehow feeling as though this meeting has fallen away from him, despite the fact that he went over all his conversation points three times. “Just wanted to ask you a couple of questions.”</p>
<p>Spider-Man’s mask screws up and he takes a step back.</p>
<p>“Um, I’m sorry, Mr Stark,” he says, and Tony’s heart falls, “but I don’t talk to press.”</p>
<p>His heart swoops back up again and Tony has to stop himself from falling about laughing. A snort echoes from his mouth, amused as he shakes his head and presses his lips together.</p>
<p>“Do I look like I’m from Buzzfeed, onesie?”</p>
<p>“You could be!” Spider-Man protests defensively. “I’ve seen a lot of undercover movies, Mr Stark.”</p>
<p>Tony finds himself chuckling before he can stop himself, almost bewildered at his own delight. There’s a clumsy yet warm simplicity to the way Spider-Man interacts with people that puts them all completely at ease, he had realised when he’d raked over the footage, but he’s surprised that it seems to be working for him, too. Tony finds that the previous anxiety has almost completely washed itself away, like waves over the sands of a beach.</p>
<p>“What’s going to convince you that I’m not a secret journalist?” he tells the kid, wholly amused for the first time in months. It’s also the first time he’s actually smiled properly in a long time and his cheeks don’t even hurt. “Other than, you know, the glaringly obvious?”</p>
<p>Spider-Man has to think about it.</p>
<p>“How about I give you the benefit of the doubt for now, Mr Stark?” he says eventually, and Tony has to actually bite down on his tongue to stop himself from laughing.</p>
<p>That’s never happened before.</p>
<p>“Very gracious of you,” Tony says, hiding his own uncertain amusement, and Spider-Man nods sincerely, eyes—or rather, goggles—fixed on him. For a moment, Tony finds himself catching his breath, an ache in his chest that seems to ease with every passing moment. Isn’t that strange, he thinks before he lets out a breath. “First question.”</p>
<p>“Okay.”</p>
<p>“Why are you doing this?”</p>
<p>The mood grows tighter and Spider-Man looks serious for the first time. He folds his arms against his chest protectively and juts his chin out.</p>
<p>“Mr Fury’s tried to speak to me too,” he says by way of answer, defensive, “but I’m not going to stop this. Not for anyone. And Spider-Man’s not a gimmick, either. I don’t—I don’t do this to be an Avenger.”</p>
<p>“I’m not Fury,” Tony tells him, trying to bite back his own defensive anger at the possibility of the SHIELD director somehow cornering the kid before him to blackmail and intimidate him into squaring up. “I want to know <em>why</em> you do it. What’s in this for you? You get a kick out of saving kittens in trees? Captain America wannabe? What is it?”</p>
<p>Spider-Man stares back at him and for a moment, the silence is long and palpable.</p>
<p>“Why did <em>you</em> do it, Mr Stark?” the kid says softly. Tony stills, thinking of dark caves and gunshots in his ear and water choking him in his lungs. He thinks of the blood that stains his hands, even now despite everything, and itches to get back into the suit again. Spider-Man is continuing, voice quiet but firm. “It’s not because—because I get some kick out of it. It’s just—I can help people. I’m lucky enough that I can make an actual difference to the lives of the people around me.” Peter Parker is earnest and yearning when he speaks, his wide and open heart burning so bright that even Tony can see it. He pauses before he says, his voice a little rough, “Someone really good once told me that with great power comes great responsibility. And… and when the world’s like this, why wouldn’t I <em>want</em> to help?”</p>
<p>It confirms every belief Tony ever had left in Spider-Man.</p>
<p>Leaves him a little bare and open and shameful of his own inaction and irresponsibility. Peter is so young and he understands so much and not only that, but he took a look at the world and decided to do something about it. That’s far more than anything Tony had ever done. He, who had continued making weapons well into his adult years. Who had defended the murder of people by evading responsibility and not just parroting his father’s words, but <em>believing</em> in them, too.</p>
<p>He had stupidly believed that his weapons had helped people even within Afghanistan before the wool had been ripped from his eyes.</p>
<p>Spider-Man refuses to even touch a gun.</p>
<p>He really is the best of them all, Tony realises quietly, and now he knows for certain who his hero is.</p>
<p>“That’s,” he clears his throat when the silence lingers between them too long and Spider-Man begins to shift a little, looking awkward, “very noble.”</p>
<p>The awkwardness disappears swiftly, leaving the kid stiffening in defence. There’s a familiarity to the way he protests, as though he refuses to let his moral beliefs be ridiculed.</p>
<p>His voice is sharp for the first time when he speaks. There’s a very cool politeness to the edge of his voice, because Peter Parker has manners even when he is angry, but he won’t be mocked.</p>
<p>He begins, “Don’t make fun of me—,”</p>
<p>Not for the first time, Tony hates the person he is. People always think that he is mocking them or teasing them because he used to be the person who never cared about anything at all but where the next party was.</p>
<p>“I’m not,” Tony tells him quickly. “I swear, I’m not. That’s… that’s a very honourable way of thinking, Spider-Man. You’re—you’re a good hero.”</p>
<p>Spider-Man freezes, but Tony is already putting down the briefcase. The kid flinches back a bit, looking appropriately wary, and it reassures and disappoints Tony all at the same time. He’s glad that the kid knows to be wary of strangers with strange things, but he also hates that the kid’s innocence had to dissipate for such a hard lesson to be learned.</p>
<p>“Thank you, Mr Stark,” Spider-Man says, “but I’m not—I’m not a hero.”</p>
<p>“There’s a lot of people who can sleep easy out there, because of you,” Tony points out. He taps at the briefcase and takes a step back. “You know where I am if you don’t like it. Just—for God’s sake, don’t use that onesie.”</p>
<p>The next morning, when he sees Spider-Man swinging past buildings on the news and Christine Everhart talking about the new suit, Tony finds himself smiling for the whole day.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>“Peter?”</p>
<p>Peter looks up, jolted out of his own head and left blinking stupidly. He glances down to his lap where he can see his hands already healing against the nail marks he’s made in the flesh of his palms. The pain flickers before seizing itself up and disappearing too quickly for him to recognise. Sometimes he thinks he needs the pain, if only to remember that he’s still real in this world.</p>
<p>That he’s not turning to ash all over again.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” he says automatically, heart in his throat as he continues to fidget.</p>
<p>The school counsellor, a young and professional woman who had introduced herself to him as Ms Aisha Khan, only smiles at him. Peter doesn’t know if it’s his own embarrassing desperation for affection but there’s a warmth in her eyes that feels almost motherly when she looks at him. A lump forms in his throat, familiar and heavy and it buries itself deep until he can’t breathe properly at all.</p>
<p>“That’s okay. You don’t need to apologise, Peter,” she tells him. Her eyes are kind, like May’s. “You kind of drifted a bit. Can I ask where?”</p>
<p>He’s torn between wanting to scream until his lungs burn out or staying so quiet that the world passes him by in a dizzying blur. <em>You wouldn’t like it where I go</em>, Peter wants to warn her, something in his chest dulling itself to a burning ache.</p>
<p>When the rapid emotion flitters away, it soaks him up and leaves him dry, wringing him free and he’s left feeling absolutely nothing. Numbness pours through him completely and Peter wants to slouch on the chair, but that would be rude so he doesn’t. Instead, he tries to answer, struggling through the thick lump in his throat and the burn of his eyes.</p>
<p>“I was just… thinking about homework.”</p>
<p>The lie is painfully flimsy, hanging in the air between them. Peter flushes hot under Ms Khan’s genial smile. He wonders briefly if she’ll call him out, like she has before, or if she’ll entertain him for now. It all really depends on what she thinks he looks like.</p>
<p>“What about homework?”</p>
<p>He must look terrible.</p>
<p>“…’S a lot.”</p>
<p>Peter is lying through his teeth.</p>
<p>He’s great with homework. Absolutely fantastic. Absorbs everything the teachers say in a feverish, almost frantic fashion, wanting to soak up anything and live in the moments he doesn’t have to remember the horrible truth. When he goes back to the place he lives in now, he does his homework completely, with perfect precision and an obsessive type of accuracy he doesn’t quite understand of himself.</p>
<p>The workload is not the problem.</p>
<p>The problem is that when Peter looks at the heavy pile of work he has completed, he just doesn’t see the point in it. The distraction falls away and he remembers all over again and it’s worse than anything else he’s ever felt, because why would he ever deserve to forget? So he swings through New York in the moonlit nights and shreds the papers up to stuff into recycling bins.</p>
<p>The silence between them lingers.</p>
<p>“Peter,” Ms Khan says eventually, her voice soft as sunlight. “Peter, I know it’s been very difficult these past few months for you, but you are doing extraordinarily well. It is strange that your homework is so consistently missing, but the work you do in class is impressive. Your teachers are very pleased with you.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t want them to be pleased with him.</p>
<p>He doesn’t deserve that.</p>
<p>“Then why am I here?” Peter says, and his voice comes out slightly too hard as he winces.</p>
<p>Ms Khan only looks back at him.</p>
<p>“You’re a smart boy, Peter,” she says. “You know exactly why you’re here.” When he doesn’t say anything, Ms Khan speaks again. “There is nothing stopping you from coming or going here. You know that. So, if it’s okay—and you don’t have to answer at all, if you’re uncomfortable or if you don’t want to—I’d like to ask you a question of my own. Why do you choose to be here, Peter?”</p>
<p>It’s Ms Khan but for a moment, Peter looks up and sees Tony Stark. The sentiment is exactly the same and he thinks of the suit Mr Stark gave him. He’s worn it once or twice because of course Spider-Man is worthy, but what about Peter Parker?</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” he confesses, something heavy falling out of his mouth as he can’t seem to stop himself from speaking. It’s like he’s on the rooftop again and all defensive and vulnerable at the same time, repeating Uncle Ben’s mantra as though he doesn’t have it burned into the back of his mind. Peter swallows tight and whispers, “I thought—I thought you could help.”</p>
<p>She’s ever patient and careful when she speaks.</p>
<p>“Help with what, Peter?”</p>
<p>
  <em>Help me stop being me.</em>
</p>
<p>He doesn’t say it out loud, stopping the words before they enter the air and Peter ducks his head, keeping his gaze on his fidgeting fingers. Even Tony Stark sees the worth in Spider-Man, but what is so special about Peter Parker? Especially when his very touch is ash and dust and all that he knows is dead and gone—</p>
<p>Peter’s inhaling sharply to catch the breath in his lungs, pressing his nails deep into his palm. Red pools up against the pale flesh and he makes a quick effort to hide it away, barely flinching when his hand heals itself completely.</p>
<p>Ms Khan seems to realise that she’s lost him because when he doesn’t say anything, she speaks again. But this time, when she speaks, her voice is shifting with some raw vulnerability that Peter has never heard from her but feels so frighteningly familiar, anyway. He understands the crease of her forehead and the shake of her fingers <em>so</em> well, so he prepares himself quietly, the walls sliding into place.</p>
<p>Peter folds himself away. Closes himself up completely. He is steel. He is untouched.</p>
<p>“Everyone lost someone when Thanos came,” Ms Khan says, and he watches her eyes flicker with that lost, haunted look everyone seems to be holding these days. Her gaze turns briefly towards the picture frame on her desk, sunlight falling over the smiling girl. “I …I lost my daughter.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry.” He hates to ask. “Did you get her back?”</p>
<p>Her eyes brim with tears as she nods.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she says shakily, half apologetic and half blindingly grateful. “Yes, I did.”</p>
<p>“You’re one of the lucky ones, then,” Peter whispers, and for the rest of the session, though Ms Khan tries her best, he doesn’t say a thing.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Tony dreams in fits and starts.</p>
<p>“I don’t love you,” Mama tells him. She bends to press a fleeting kiss to his hair and smiles. “And I don’t think I was meant to be your mother.”</p>
<p>When he’s left on the driveway, she reaches out with her hands and shoves him—<em>hard.</em></p>
<p>Tony stumbles back, reaching out for his mother, but he screams as he falls. He’s drowning amongst the stars all over again, the black and molten gold pouring across his vision until he’s blinded out completely and left to gasp, hot and desperate. The night sky is endless and it wraps him up, squeezing the breath out of him, before unfolding itself away to show the vast array of Thanos’ armies.</p>
<p>“No—,” Tony gasps, shaking his head. He knows that Thanos is dead and gone now. He saw it with his own eyes. “<em>No</em>, please—,”</p>
<p>And then he’s back in the water, under the streaming Malibu sun, struggling to breathe and his mind screaming at him. The world is nothing but pain and as the hand yanks at the back of his neck and pulls him up to gasp around the hot Afghanistan air, where Steve Rogers plants his father’s shield in his chest.</p>
<p>“Steve, stop—,”</p>
<p>“He’s my friend,” Steve tells him apologetically, as he repeatedly slams the shield into Tony’s chest, ignoring Tony’s bloodied pleas. He’s choking blood and gasping hotly on the ground and begging for Steve to let up. “And you’re not, Tony. You just couldn’t quite make the cut.”</p>
<p>“Why would he? Look what he’s done to my name. My <em>legacy</em>,” Howard sneers as he reaches to help push the shield deeper into Tony’s chest as Tony writhes and screams for his father to stop. Dad leans in, his mouth a harsh, firm line, and he snarls out, “It should have been you in the ice.”</p>
<p>“Dad—,”</p>
<p>Yinsen reaches into his chest and yanks out his heart. He’s got on a doctor’s robe and his eyes are narrow as he examines the beating thing, brows pulled together quizzically as Tony gasps hotly on the table. The pain is absolutely blinding, white hot and sharp but still, Tony tries to speak, choking and struggling in vain.</p>
<p>“I—I need that—,”</p>
<p>“Cold,” Yinsen is saying professionally, voice clipped and cool. He completely ignores Tony’s pleas, his eyes brimming with tears, and continues in a clinical tone. “Almost black entirely. It is as though you do not even have one, Stark.”</p>
<p>“No,” he gasps. “No, I do, I <em>do</em>—,”</p>
<p>They both know it’s a lie. Yinsen just watches him with a slight amused quirk to his lips as he continues to examine the heart. Rot pours through it, poisoning it completely just as Tony had feared. The problem is not the people around him. It is him. Everyone leaves him, so there must be something wrong with <em>him. </em></p>
<p>“What are you looking for, Tony Stark?”</p>
<p>Tony wakes, gasping hotly and sweat lining his forehead. Up above, the night sky bursts with gleaming stars and broken constellations scattered across the velvety black. It’s a beauty he can’t appreciate because it still scares the life out of him.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know what he wants.</p>
<p>Yinsen is a constant presence, always. A reminder not to waste his life.</p>
<p>But oh, how he has <em>lived</em>. Tony knows that he is lucky. He has lived his life more than anyone else. More than someone like him could ever deserve to. Tony knows that he certainly doesn’t deserve to keep living, but here he is, escaping the sweet oblivion of death constantly. It’s not at all fair.</p>
<p>Thanos is gone. The war is won. The Avengers are still here.</p>
<p>Tony Stark should be better.</p>
<p>So what does he want <em>now</em>?</p>
<p>Tony leans his head back against the pillow, waiting to catch his breath as his chest aches a little. The glow of the arc reactor is a familiar hum, the blue lit up around him gently, and he taps a familiar rhythm against the glass.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take long for him to rub a hand over his eyes tiredly and get out of bed.</p>
<p>Something in his chest aches and yearns and he moves to the workshop again. The ache in his chest begins to ebb when he picks up Mark 13b of Spider-Man’s goggles and Tony examines it carefully before he pulls it apart again to make it better.</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. not a chapter</h2></a>
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    <p>okay first of all, i'm really sorry that this isn't an update. i've literally only managed like five hundred words when i meant to write way more, like i had a set plan and everything. but unfortunately, things in my life just seem to be getting worse and i'm not doing so good right now. </p>
<p>i really really hate that i have to do this, but i have to put a pause on writing and updating for now. i don't know when i can write again because things have been so shitty that i haven't even been able to write and that kills me more than anything else tbh. please don't worry at all, because i swear i will come back to writing - it will happen, but i just don't know exactly when. my mental health at this moment is at an all time low and it's getting really bad and i just, i dont really know what to do anymore, but i will write again, i know it. </p>
<p>i promise you, i will finish this. i dont know why i'm acting like this fic is even anything good lol, but i guess this is more of a promise to myself than anything else. i will come back to this when i am better.</p>
<p>until then, thank you very much for taking the time to read and to give kudos and to comment. i appreciate it all so much and each comment has been a literal source of light, so thank you very much. </p>
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